


another you, an other you

by unDeleterious



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Jewish Peter Parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-23 10:10:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23076481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unDeleterious/pseuds/unDeleterious
Summary: Peter B. Parker is Jewish. Peter Parker wasn’t.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 39





	another you, an other you

Blond-haired blue-eyed Peter Parker is dead.

It isn’t until he finds his name on a slab in a church graveyard that he fully understands that the man New York is grieving really was a whole, different person. Up until now this entire situation has felt like some kind of funny-not-funny play put on for the sole benefit of Peter B. Parker, set in a world just far enough away from reality to avoid paying licensing fees. Showing him what he would look like with a palette tweak, living the good life, him if he didn’t keep fucking things up. Maybe showing him that even if he does everything perfect it’ll still blow up, and sooner, not later. Maybe what it would look like to have MJ mourn for him.

The gravestone says: a man died. The man was named Peter Parker, and the man wasn’t him. It’s sad, he realizes, in a way outside of himself. It’s not symbolic, or a metaphor, or to teach him something. It’s just sad.

It’s also a complete disaster. One dragging through the streets and one daring infiltration later, and New York is looking toward a record three dead Spider-Men within the month, plus assorted non-man Spider-Beings, plus the rest of the city in a dimension-rending doomsday courtesy of Wilson Fisk.

When he has a minute to think at Aunt May’s house he wonders idly about the differences. Does this Peter being Christian mean this Aunt May is Christian? Did this Peter convert? He looked the part, but that doesn’t mean anything, but it means he was born different somehow, so what gives? He wonders if this Peter was cut – terrible question to think of – but most little American boys are – but for all he knows that’s different here too. He wonders if the detective is Jewish. That guy’s him. His main interest is punching Nazis, which is proactive if he’s from 1933. What about the pig? Peter, a photographer, he’s a funny animal. Peni, maybe? She’s a Parker, even if she’s not a Peter. Miles and Gwen, at least, definitely aren’t him. Hm, they’ve each separately seen one of him die. The interdimensional average lifespan of Peter Parkers is not looking great.

This reflection is quickly interrupted by violence, interspersed with feeling, culminating in emotional growth. Peter drops, suddenly, back to the world of all his familiar mistakes and loved ones, the people he has hurt and the people who have traditionally hurt him. Guy-Doc Ock, for example, who he finds himself incredibly glad is neither as competent nor as hot as the one he just left behind. What a weird world.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this for purimgifts and then realized that my recipient asked for no character death and wrote “a home for the holidays” to post in its stead.


End file.
